there are a lot of things you could be way worse at and it would be fine
23 07 2007Now that I work downtown, if I go out for lunch I just walk to wherever I’m going, which is awesome. It will probably suck when it gets cold out, but I can worry about that in a few months (an attitude that I will probably keep around for whenever I get some lucky girl knocked up). As I’m walking around the streets of my fair city, I typically see a fair number of homeless people.
I realize that, having never been homeless myself, it is probably more difficult than I can imagine. That being said, I saw two of the worst homeless guys ever today while I was walking to get my pizza with money that I earned from going to a job (that last part is for any homeless people who Google “being homeless” looking for tips). While both were sufficiently dirty and shifty-looking to be at least average homeless guys, they were both really fat.
I don’t have much of a problem with homeless people, and I don’t have a problem with someone being fat if that is what they want. However, if you are trying to be a homeless person and you are sitting on a corner weighing 280 lbs and holding a sign that says “PLEASE HELP FOOD,” as one of these guys was, then you suck as a homeless person. You should have ended the sign with the words, “FROM GOING IN MY MOUTH.” The other giant dude did not have a sign and was at least ambulatory, but he was still hassling people for change. I don’t ever give vagrants change anyway, but I am definitely not giving it to those cats. They are clearly doing well enough with food procurement that they don’t need my financial backing. Perhaps you can go jogging with me and I will buy you some Gatorade afterward if I don’t think you’re slacking off too much. I will let you pick your own flavor.
But no Propel, homeless jogging buddy. You need to replenish your sodium levels.
Zesty, OMG, you are so not nice. They are homeless people for cripes sake! Maybe they were fat because they just recently became homeless, or maybe one of them just recently became homeless and the other has a tumor on his thyroid, or something weird like that.
Maybe one of them just got done with a nasty divorce and has no where to go and his greedy ass wife gets every dime of the money he doesn’t spend on child support in alimony payments. True there are some people who just make decent money as pan handlers, enough to support their crack habits anyway, but I know a little old guy that was the husband of a patient I cared for, he had gotten sucked into one of those sting/set up things where you invest money into whatever, and then the people just take off with your money? Well he got stung by them and he was like 75 and ended up losing pretty much every dime, had to get on food stamps and was about to lose everything. It was really sad…
Point being you never really know what life has dealt someone. I am a full believer in pulling yourself up by the boot straps and doing whatever you need to in order to make ends meet (my life should well be proof of that), if you can ask for food or change you can also say “Welcome to McDonalds, what can I get you today?” But some people really do just get screwed. Be nice!
HA! A tumor on his thyroid? That’s my new excuse…thanks, Steph! :o)
Last summer I was walking down the street, heading back to the Sac Convention Center after having eaten a delicious dinner when I and several other women I was with were approached by a young man, about Chris’s age. He asked if we could give him some money to get something to eat. All the other woman kept walking but I stopped to talk to him. He pretty much said look, I’m not a drug addict, I’m trying to get a job, I’m gay and my parents kicked me out of the house when I told them I was gay. I just need to eat. There was something in that boy’s eyes that just made me not walk away. I had a bag full of leftovers so I gave him the food and $20. He got pretty teary eyed, said thanks and walked away.
As he got further down the street, he hollers “HEY, thanks again!” I turned around to just wave him off like “it’s okay” and he starts walking back toward me. The kid comes up to me, throws his arms around me and says, “You don’t know how much this means. You’re the first person who’s looked me in the eye in a long time”. I was floored. I told him that I have a son about his age and if my son ran into hard times and I didn’t know where he was, I would hope that someone would make sure he has food. He cried and he made me cry.
I don’t normally hand out $20 bills to perfect strangers but I’m glad I did that time. Now granted, the guy might be totally full of crap but it doesn’t matter. If all I lose is $20 but still feel good, who cares.
You guys take crap too seriously. I never said I didn’t feel bad for the homeless dudes in question. What I was trying to get across, and I suppose I did a poor job of this, is that if you are a big fat guy asking me for money, you need to come up with a better reason than, “I need to eat,” because it looks like they are getting by just fine in that dept.
I knew what you were trying to say. Doesn’t mean it was nice!!
That was a sad story mom…I thought you were going to say “He got further down the street and took off running towards a crack dealer and said ‘Look what that dumbass gave me!!”
sorry, you’ve been meme’d.